The Borderlands Journal: Day 15

At long last (and I do mean long) my time with Borderlands has finally come to an end. Over the past two weeks, it’s become something of an obsession with my friends and I, with them coming over to put in a few solid hours worth of playing time every day, and me sneaking away from writing to play by myself with no one around.

I’ve sunk I’d say about 60 to 80 hours into the game over the past two weeks, and in my opinion, any game that holds my attention for over 30 is a success. So by that definition, yes Borderlands succeeds in being a good game, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t without a heaping helping of problems., some of which I’ve discussed in past journals, and some which are still to come.

I’ve beaten the game no less than three and a half times at this point, two difficultly levels with my falcon-throwing Hunter, who I mainly used for single player, and one and a half with my skull-bashing Berserker, who was my co-op character.

What Borderlands does extremely well, perhaps better than any game that’s come before it, is the combining of live-action fighting and RPG elements. The first person shooting action is not quite Halo or COD, but it’s definitely not Mass Effect or Fallout, and combat is more often than not a whole hell of a lot of fun.

And it’s way, way more fun with friends.

Also worthwhile is the different ways you can pimp out your characters skill tree, and the way you can equip him with an endless supply of practically never repeating weapons. One thing Borderlands does that I love is that it allows you to reallocate skill points after you’ve spent them. This is in contrast to say, Diablo, where you must level up the same character four different ways (spending 100 hours doing so) to even see if a certain build would work out well. Borderlands lets you do it on the spot, and instead of making you play through the game with six different character classes, four different ways each, it give you a much more manageable four classes, where you can rearrange them any which way whenever you feel like it, without six, seven or eight forced playthroughs.

Though the leveling system is very well done, it does a lot to point out that Borderlands in an unfinished game, or at least a poorly planned one. You beat the first playthrough at level 35, and during the second one, you hit the 50 level cap about half way through. Either the game needs to be about 30% longer, or it should have at least been divided into a 25/25 split. It’s quite frustrating to starting killing massively powerful enemies near the end of the game, and having the experience from them do jack shit for you.

Side note: vehicle combat sucks a large amount of ass, when it looks like it should be a blast.

I understand that a large part of RPGs like this is repetition, but nothing is more frustrating than maxing out a level cap in a game in a relatively short amount of time, with nothing else to do afterwards. The end boss of Borderlands, besides being one of the easiest video game bosses ever created, disappears after you beat the game once, so there’s no point in continuing to play the last section of the game over and over doing Baal runs (Diablo reference). Once you hit fifty and beat the game, there’s nothing to keep you going.

One of the big draws about Borderlands has been the random item drops, where literally millions of weapon combinations can be found and utilized in the game. Only Borderlands doesn’t quite have the whole concept of random item drops down. Once you hit level thirty or so, there is no enemy in the game, including the final boss (ESPECIALLY the final boss for me) who drops ANYthing you will actually use. Rather, the best items are found only in chests, and so-called “magic finding runs” merely involve racing through levels to find as many chests as possible, putting fighting enemies squarely on the backburner. Also, I have yet to confirm the existence of the mythical rarest “pearlescent” class of items, said to be a level above burnt orange, but I have to say, if you spend 80 hours playing a game and don’t find ONE weapon of the rarest class, you’ve got your item drop settings a bit messed up.

Lastly, the story of Borderlands is almost non-existent, and the depth of your character and the ones you interact with is laughably shallow. Only about four NPCs in the entire game actually have voices, and the rest communicate via tiny text blurbs that only show up when you take or complete a mission. I’ve played through the game three times and only have some vague idea of what the hell happened. I’m a merc sent to find pieces of a key on an alien planet that opens some giant vault that’s supposed to make me rich and famous. Along the way there are crazy bandits from Mad Max and evil soldiers from Fallout 3 to make things more difficult for me. I open the vault and instead of getting rich, a giant vagina monster comes out, and I kill it and it never drops any good items. The end.

Yes, I see the ass, but you have to make me care about the ass.

I have a feeling that the surely forthcoming DLC for the game will fix a lot of these issues I’ve mentioned (other than the lack of story). They’ve got to raise the level cap, and give me a good reason to use this giant alien shotgun I just found two minutes before beating the game for good.

Despite its many lingering issues, any game that hooks me in to this degree for a solid two weeks of my life deserves some pretty high praise. It’s stylish, it’s fun and I can’t wait to see more of the franchise in the future. It’s probably not game of the year, but it’s been a damn fine surprise nonetheless.

About The Author

Paul

I think I'm a part of the first generation of journalists to skip print media entirely, and I've learned a lot these last few years at Forbes. My work has appeared on TVOvermind, IGN, and most importantly, a segment on The Colbert Report at one point.

Gamer

I have been reading all your Journals for this game and I think you are dead on. My buddies and I have been playing this co-op and it is definitely the way to go, but everything you have mentioned as lacking we have noticed as well. It is kinda rediculous that the best gear we got was from chests in New Haven. There are four (two which never drop anything) chests that can be looted, IN TOWN! There is no danger. Just loot and restart the game, repeat, profit.

WhatItIs

Just one thing bout Diablo 2 they found some kind of exploit and you can get from 0-90 in like 8 hrs. This game seems awesome i know a few people that have been playing it and i would get it if there weren’t so many other games coming out but when i get bored and theres no new games coming out that i want this will be the first i will go after.

zero

I’ve been reading all of your posts as well. After reading your post, I will probably give it a try.

One thing I don’t quite agree with you on is your comparison with Fallout 3. I tried that game once, and I didn’t like it at all. I ran into the ammo problem you mentioned in this game where I had no ammo, money, or loot and had to run back to my base. This happened in the first level where you had to fight the giant ants. I was so pissed off that I just gave up on the game.

Anyhow, you should do a journal on Dragon Age Origins.

http://paul@unrealitymag.com Paul Tassi

Both this game and Fallout 3 have a peak point where one second you have no ammo or health and can’t kill anything, then twenty minutes later you reach a level where suddenly you’re God. I hit that same point with the ants in Fallout, it’s not just well structured, but you can push through it.

Yeah, I’ll probably pick up Dragon Age this weekend.

Max

Your journals are always really, really good, but could you maybe put a little spoiler alert before telling the end of the game?

shaunte

i am opposed to borderlands. i have however only played by myself in it. the lack of story and ridiculously long play through time are not a good combo. i understand that shooting things is fun but add a little spice to the damn thing. give me more to do other than shoot stuff.

JohnPaul

I know this is too little, too late, but pearlescant weapons don’t appear in the vanilla version of Borderlands – you need DLC for those to appear – The Secret Armoury of General Knoxx or something like that. The said DLC will also add more Eridian weapons than the lame one you get for killing that paladin dude, as well.

I never started this game after beating it once. Went through as a Sniper and died too many times trying to do the first Shock Crystal Cave mission. Game got returned to my shelf and not touched for a year.

Went back as a soldier, and I’m having a blast with his ammo regeneration, health increase and shield regeneration abilities. Well, I had a blast, should say.

Still, never got to play with friends but your co-op technique sounds good…if I ever buy the DLC i’ll make sure I use your technique. Your journals are decent. Thanks.